


Suck It, Judy Garland

by GlitterDwarf, midrashic



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Case Fic, Castiel/Dean Winchester Mutual Pining, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Getting Together, M/M, Pining Dean Winchester, Post-Episode: s12e12 Stuck In The Middle (With You)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-12
Updated: 2019-03-12
Packaged: 2019-11-16 03:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18086930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlitterDwarf/pseuds/GlitterDwarf, https://archiveofourown.org/users/midrashic/pseuds/midrashic
Summary: It had to be St. Louis. Or, the one where Sam and Cas get fake married for a case, and Dean loses hismind.





	1. Pleasantville

**Author's Note:**

> This fic takes place between 12.12 and 12.13: the boys have met Ramiel but don’t know that Mary is working for the British Men of Letters. Goes AU at a fairly obvious point late in the story.
> 
> A thousand million thanks to my amazing, wonderful, incredible artist [bisexu-elle](https://bisexu-elle.tumblr.com/) / [GlitterDwarf](), Mittens, and Cass for the best big bang ever. You rock.

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –

It had to be fucking St. Louis.

Of all times for Jody and Donna to disappear on a rugaru hunt. Donna had chirped, “Sorry, Dean-o, you boys are on your own this time around,” and Jody hadn’t even answered the phone. Mom was off the grid—again—not that that would be any better, because. You know. It was _Mom._ She was already younger than them, she didn’t need the weirdness of pretending to be their—on top of it. And that was all the female hunters they knew who _might_ be willing to shack up with Sam so they could solve this case in a gated community whose website banner blared cheerfully, COUPLES & FAMILIES ONLY.

And it had to be Sam. St. Louis was the only place in the country where Dean’s face was more familiar than not, the only place which continued to run late-night TV specials about how one of the twenty-first century’s most notorious spree killers had gotten his start there in sleepy little St. Louis. Sam was lucky; he’d changed dramatically from the fresh-faced puppy-eyed loser he’d been in 2005. Dean, not so much. Whenever they worked cases in St. Louis, Dean found himself confined to haggard motel rooms and back alleys. Back when James Frampton had been on the force, they’d been able to use him for cover, letting him do the legwork. But James had fucked off to wherever male witches went to find themselves with Portia, leaving them in the unenviable position of once again having a case, no one to pass it off to, and no way to work it without drawing more attention to themselves than they’d really like.

“Actually, I was thinking Cas and I could do it,” Sam said.

“What?” Cas said.

“What,” Dean said.

Which was the other thing. Cas had to be here, taking a break on his relentless search for Kelly Kline after the nasty mess they’d gotten into with Ramiel and the Lance of Michael, technically “recuperating” but really just hanging around and munching slowly and meditatively on their bacon. Cas, St. Louis, COUPLES & FAMILIES ONLY. It was all a perfect storm for the bullshit that had just sloshed out of Sam’s mouth.

“You don’t mind, do you Cas?” Sam was asking.

“Mind? No, I don’t… mind,” Cas said, clearly not sure what he was agreeing to at all. It was enough for Sam to brandish a giant moose-paw at him triumphantly, though, and look at Dean expectantly, like he was waiting for him to jump on board with this _totally psychotic plan of his_.

“You and Cas… pretending to be a…” God, he couldn’t even say it, the whole idea was that stupid.

“A couple, Dean. I think we could pull it off. Don’t you, Cas?” And then Sam _draped an arm_ around Cas, who was sitting stiffly, hunched over his bacon. And Cas _relaxed into him._ Dean stared. Something hot and terrifying was rearing up inside his chest. He needed to shut this down. No.

“Dude. Dude, no. I mean, come on. Look at you guys.”

Sam shot him a _danger, here be dragons_ look from under his fringe. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I mean—you’re Sam! And he’s Cas! No one will ever buy it.”

“I don’t know,” Cas said unexpectedly. “I think we could pull it off. Dear.” He smiled, took a bite of his bacon, and immediately made his _ugh, molecules_ face. Dean felt stupidly fond of him, a fondness which was being swallowed up by increasing amounts of panic as this idea inexorably snowballed into becoming reality.

“Thanks, hon,” Sam said. Dean tried not to gag. “We can practice,” he said, turning back to Dean. Which—no. _Practice_ implied actually going through with this insanity, and he wasn’t going to let it get to that point.

“You two have zero chemistry,” he sputtered.

Sam bitchfaced at him. “We’re buying a house, not trying to win America’s Cutest Couple. I think we’ll get by.”

“It’s _Missouri,_ Sam. Come on. This isn’t a good idea.”

Sam scoffed. “It’s a major metropolitan area in 21st-century America. It’s not like they’re going to run us out of town with knives and pitchforks. Look,” he said, his voice becoming low and pleading, and oh no, that was his _I’m going to win so just give up already_ voice, “if they turn us away, we’ll find another way in. But this is our best shot at getting inside and figuring out what’s going on, and you know it.”

“But—but—” Sam’s arm was _still around Cas, damn it,_ and it was severely shorting out Dean’s ability to come up with coherent arguments. “You’re not even gay!”

“In case you haven’t noticed, we’re not FBI agents, either. It’s just another cover.” Sam squinted at him. “What is _wrong_ with you?” 

“It’s not—I’m not—this isn’t—we’re not—”

Horrifically, Sam’s face softened into something almost like understanding. There were dark rings under his eyes. He had taken solitary confinement harder than Dean; he hadn’t been sleeping, Dean knew. “It’ll just be for a few days,” he said placatingly, always the peacemaker, even when exhausted.

“Dean,” Cas said, brows furrowed, “do you really have a problem with this? I would like to accompany you, but I wouldn’t want to… make you uncomfortable…”

 _This whole conversation is making me uncomfortable,_ Dean thought wildly, but as he watched Cas droop an impulse even stronger than the one to blot out any thought of _Sam &Cas _rose up in him. More than Sam’s strongest puppy-eyes, Cas could do a wilted-flower kind of look that made Dean just want to make it all better, damn it. He looked helplessly into Cas’s blue, blue eyes (like the glittering reflection of stars, some terrible part of his mind whispered) and found himself saying, “It’s not you, Cas, it’s…”

“It’s what?” Sam challenged, the little bitch.

He couldn’t say it. He’d never said it, not for years and years and he wasn’t going to say it now, not when Sam was only asking for his blessing for a couple of days faking it for the sake of a hunt. Crushingly, Dean realized he’d lost this one. He gritted his teeth. “Never mind. It’s… fine. It’s all… fine.”

It was not fine.

And so began the worst days of Dean Winchester’s life.

– ✞ –

Pleasant Gardens wasn’t actually _in_ St. Louis—close enough to share a police department and late-night cable shows broadcasting Dean’s face to insomniacs and crime nuts everywhere—it was nestled just on the border of the city proper and one of the affluent, cookie-cutter suburbs with great schools and sky-high property taxes. And it was doing its level best to bring that aesthetic back into the urban jungle from whence it came. Inside the gate were fountains, a dog park, pressed juice places… neatly manicured lawns and sweet little wood-sided houses each painted a different pastel shade. As they drove up to the white-tablecloth restaurant placed at the center of the neighborhood, they saw children swarming to an ice cream van chirping nearby. It was all sickeningly idyllic. Dean hated it instantly.

“You know, this is actually a pretty nice place,” Sam said over the stack of homeowner’s propaganda he’d printed out before leaving the Bunker. “Did you know Pleasant Gardens has the lowest crime rate of any neighborhood or borough in the whole state?”

Dean grunted. “Guess that’s what you get when you’re picky about who gets to play with little Timmy.”

He’d endured Sam rehearsing their cover story the long, _long_ drive over—only five hundred miles, he’d done way more at a stretch, but _something_ about listening to Sam repeat, “I’m Sam Novak,” over and over again had frayed his nerves like nothing short of Sam’s most noxious gas attacks had ever managed to do—but now he was getting _fun facts?_ God, he was ready for this case to be over and it hadn’t even really started yet. He pulled up into the tiny gap left between cars lining the street like neatly placed toys. “Let’s get this over with,” he grumbled.

“Whoa.” Sam held out a hand to stop him as he stepped from asphalt to sidewalk. “Where do you think you’re going?”

“Into the restaurant,” Dean said, as though he were talking to someone particularly slow. “To meet your real estate chick. So we can get the stupid house. And save this stupid town.”

“No,” Sam said, gesturing to himself and Cas, “ _we_ are going into the restaurant to meet Marjorie, who is not a _real estate chick_ , she’s the block warden who has to sign off on our application before we can actually buy the house to, I dunno, make sure we’re not total weirdos.”

“We _are_ total weirdos, though,” Cas put in.

“Yes, thank you, Cas, please don’t say that _to_ her and we should be okay. My point is, Cas and I are going to meet her. You are getting back in the car and finding a motel that doesn’t care that you’re an escaped killer and also dead.”

“Hey, I can scrub up,” Dean said, wounded.

“It’s not about looking out of place, Dean,” said Sam, who was wearing his Fed shirt with the sleeves rolled up to make it look _casual_. “It’s just—weird for a couple to bring their clingy serial killer of a brother along to sign their lease! Go,” he said forbiddingly. He took Cas’s arm and dragged him into the restaurant.

Dean waited exactly two minutes before donning the baseball cap he’d pulled out of his closet for blending-into-St.-Louis reasons, following them inside, and asking the nice lady if he could be seated by the window, next to the big fella. The look Sam gave him could probably wither plants and kill small animals. Luckily, a short, round-faced woman was already sliding into the booth across from him and Cas, and he quickly had to divert from glaring at Dean to smiling at her.

“You must be the new tenants,” she said cheerfully. Dean could already tell he was going to hate her. He hoped that she was somehow responsible for the three strange deaths that had occurred in _Pleasant Gardens_ over the last week and a half—then he could shoot her, probably.

“Yeah, I’m Sam, and this is Cas,” Sam said genially. They’d agreed that Sam ought to do most of the talking. Cas had gotten better at the lying thing, but it was still hit-or-miss whether his more blatant attempts would land.

“Pleasure, pleasure! Have you ordered yet? The specials are always good here—” Dean cheerfully tuned out the idle restaurant chitchat in favor of looking over his own menu and goggling at the prices. He didn’t look up until he heard the magic words—”So tell me about yourselves!”

This was it. This was where it could all go wrong. Contrary to Sam’s belief, he hadn’t just followed them in here to be annoying; he was treating Pleasant Gardens like a combat zone and wouldn’t just let his men go in without anyone watching their backs. He was there to intervene if things went south, or start shooting if they went _really_ south. So far, so good, Sam was carrying on with the approved story—criminal lawyer and Gas-N-Sip exec—

“Oh, I know all of that, it was on your application. Tell me about the _real_ Sam and Cas. How did you meet?”

“My—uh—my brother introduced us.”

“It was Halloween,” Cas added.

“Oh, that’s lovely! Halloween party?”

“Yeah,” Sam said quickly to cut off whatever was about to come out of Cas’s mouth. “It was… a pretty wild night. It took Cas a while to warm up to me, actually.”

“Sam was battling his own demons at the time.”

“Yes, thank you, Cas. Anyway, we eventually became friends and then became… more than friends.” Dean was _absolutely_ not picturing how much more smoothly that would’ve gone if he’d been the one telling it. “We got married last year, and now we’re looking to buy a house together.”

“You know, my husband and I were just the same. We met at a frat party—embarrassing, right?” Dean tuned her out again, hyperfocusing on Sam’s arm around Cas’s shoulder. It had been weird in the bunker kitchen, but here, in the low lights of a romantic restaurant, it looked almost… natural. Like he belonged there. Dean gritted his teeth and tried to block out the throbbing pangs of jealousy, the voice screaming that he had been so careful for so long about how he touched Cas and Sam just came in and—and he didn’t have a countdown timer in his head for how long his hugs could last, he didn’t carefully measure each moment, each fleeting brush of hands—even when they weren’t pretending, Sam had a freedom around Cas that Dean could never allow himself.

This had been a mistake. He hadn’t followed them in here as backup, he acknowledged to himself. He just hadn’t wanted Sam’s hands on Cas where he couldn’t see it. As though by witnessing it he could minimize it, but here in this dark restaurant, that arm around Cas’s shoulder felt anything but minimal. Dean realized he’d glared through his own meal and theirs when Marjorie stood, clapping her hands together and saying something about the deed—they could sign the deed—the house was theirs.

Dean numbly paid for his overpriced burger and followed them outside. This time, he didn’t go after them as they rounded the corner to walk to their new house, Sam’s arm once again swinging by his side. He got into the car, drove to a no-tell motel, and checked in. A room for one.

– ✞ –

This was what had happened in Pleasant Gardens:

Last week, an accountant had tripped down the stairs. Not normally cause for alarm, except he’d landed on the banister with enough force to drive one of its posts through his ribs and out the other side. And the weird deaths were continuing: a housewife had gotten garroted by the Christmas lights she’d been taking down. A messenger boy had drowned in the fountain. Dean was thinking witch, but that was because his suspicions always ran toward witches when the inexplicable was in play. Sam personally had his money on a particularly creative vengeful spirit.

The thing about Pleasant Gardens, though, was that it was a tight-knit, _closed_ community. Dean and Sam had some experience with small towns that just wanted everyone else to butt out of their business, but usually the flash of an FBI badge changed their tune quickly enough. Not here. The whole neighborhood was wealthy, well-educated, and had their own security that law enforcement had to get past in order to get anything done. Sam had called St. Louis PD and been treated to a twenty-minute rant on those “secretive sons-of-bitches in Pleasant Gardens” and their habit of keeping things quiet over making sure no more people got killed. The police file Sam had printed off was worryingly sparse, with some notations that detectives had just given up when particularly closed-lips neighbors had chased them off.

Hence the plan: infiltration. Sam and Cas had applied to buy several days ago, before the third unexplained death, and were impressed by how quickly the whole Pleasant Gardens machinery moved to vet and assimilate them into the neighborhood. Within a day they’d gotten a call back about their credit histories (lovingly forged with the help of some protocols Charlie had left behind on her laptop). Within three days, an invitation to meet a block warden to see whether they would be a good fit for the neighborhood, personality-wise.

It was all coming together. Something was going to go wrong at any moment.

– ✞ –

The “tour” of the neighborhood was a good excuse for Castiel to look around with the full breadth of curiosity and interest he felt. There had been a map with Sam’s extensive research of the neighborhood, but seeing, experiencing the _feel_ of a place in person was always… different. Back when he could fly, one of his favorite things was finding out-of-the-way nooks in major cities around the world and just soaking in the atmosphere, the sounds, the smells, the air quality, everything that made this place uniquely distinct from every other place on earth.

He couldn’t fly anymore, of course.

Pleasant Gardens… lived up to its name, mostly. There was the aggressive greenery even in winter, the imported flowers that made the place look perennially in bloom. The children, radiating bright innocence. It was between snows in St. Louis but before school started again, he gathered. It wasn’t usually so raucous, Marjorie said apologetically. He assumed that this was something couples with children might worry about. He liked the noise. It reminded him that life, inevitably, went on.

But there was a distinct feeling of hyperfocus about the place, like being in a pressure-cooker. The smiles of the adults were all slightly forced, the bragging and tale-swapping of whose children had done what and who’d gotten a promotion at work all a little performative. Intense unhappiness, he thought, radiated from this place. But it was no more or less than he’d noticed from most places of its ilk in America. 

He noticed Marjorie was taking them on a circuitous route that avoided the fountain in which the delivery boy had drowned. A smart sales move had they been any other couple. A tad annoying since they were them. He could tell by the thinning of Sam’s mouth that he thought so, too, but he gamely continued to make small talk with Marjorie about the neighborhood and its legions of seemingly contented residents while Cas quietly observed and… worried. About the case, these poor unsuspecting people living where evil lurked, about Kelly Kline and taking a few days off from his relentless search for her, about the slow increase in ambient temperature caused by global warming. About bees, about Sam, about Dean.

Dean had been acting oddly. This was not uncommon. Dean often acted oddly. But Castiel could not think of anything he had done to make Dean as white-knuckled and red-faced around him as he had been lately, save killing Billie, and they had made their peace over that. Dean had not touched him once since he had agreed to help them on this case, not a casual pat on the shoulder or a brief brush of fingers as he passed a beer over. Castiel… missed it. There. He missed the scant shreds of physical contact he was allowed to partake in. Sam had grown more affectionate in preparation for their ruse, but it wasn’t the same.

Dean had quietly let them slip away after dinner, heading back to his car, probably to do what Sam had told him to do and find a motel and lay low. Dean burned brightly and guttered out, swinging between poles at a rate Castiel couldn’t quite parse. Dean was angry at him, again. So what else was new? But Castiel still felt the bitter chill of loneliness creep over him, surrounded by people—his new neighbors—as he was, with Sam a warm presence by his side. To be shunned by Dean was like being exiled from humanity. Startling and cold.

The house they were signing the deed for tonight was painted a pale blue, with pristine white shutters and trim. Castiel couldn’t help wondering what Dean would have thought of it. He remembered the trim, neat house in which Dean had briefly lived with Lisa Braeden and her son. Would he scoff, valuing his freedom and the road over something so stationary as a normal life? Or would he go quiet, thinking of all the things he could never have, or once may have had if he’d made different choices, been a different man?

“Hello!” a young woman called from the steps of the house next door. There was paint in her hair and between her toes. She looked much like Marjorie: same round face, same gray eyes. “Are you the new neighbors, then?”

“Yeah, I’m Sam, and this is Cas.” Sam said warmly. Castiel raised a hand in greeting.

“I’m Helena! I see the drill sergeant over here’s given you your marching orders already, huh?”

“Actually, I found Marjorie quite relaxed and informative,” Cas told her.

“She’s joking,” Marjorie said, smiling. “Helena’s my sister.”

“Oh!” Sam said.

“We really stress family and community here in Pleasant Gardens,” Marjorie said. “Maybe your brother could come join us one day, huh?”

Sam laughed. Castiel could hear the strain in it. “Dean’s not really the… settling-down type. That’s great, though, living so close to each other.”

In Cas’s ear, though, he whispered. “That’s her. Helena Morrison. The widow of the first vic.” Cas surveyed her through new eyes. He had admitted, first to Mary, then to himself, that he didn’t have what Sam and Dean might call a hunter’s instincts. Still, he’d had enough network TV beamed into his head to know that the people close to the first victim were always suspects. She seemed innocuous enough—wooden handmade jewelry dangling from her neck, dimpling when she smiled at the two of them. Weren’t widows supposed to be disconsolate just a week after their spouses’ deaths?

“Are you signing the deed today, then?” Helena said.

“Intrusive,” Marjorie admonished.

“It’s just that you’ve picked a wonderful time to move in. I know you probably don’t have anything packed yet, but you should stay a few days! The monthly block party is tonight.”

“That’s not a bad idea,” Marjorie admitted. “You could meet some more of the neighbors, get a bit more familiar with the neighborhood…”

“That sounds awesome,” Sam said before Castiel could even open his mouth. “Will you be there?”

“Ms. Block Warden administrates the event,” Helena said. “I’ll be painting faces! Tiger or bunny rabbit?”

“Uh, I think I’m more a tiger person,” Sam laughed.

Castiel squinted at him. “But tigers are an endangered species, Sam. Rabbits, on the other hand, are plentiful, and both kosher and halal.” He realized his mistake instantly when Marjorie seemed to choke on her own horrified laughter. Helena winked at him and disappeared back inside her own clapboard house. “Um—that is to say—”

“Who knew such a sense of humor was waiting under that silent exterior?” Marjorie marveled. Castiel uncertainly closed his mouth. In spite of his social faux pas, it seemed he had somehow endeared himself to the woman whose approval was necessary for him and Sam to buy the house. She led them cheerfully up the steps to where the deed and a sheaf of paper that wanted to know about their “mortgage status” was waiting inside on the kitchen table.

The house was sparsely furnished—a bland, unremarkable sofa in the living room, a bedframe upstairs with a pair of dressers, kitchen table and chairs and that was about it. Castiel thought he liked the emptiness of it all—it seemed inviting, like it was just waiting for a young family or couple to settle in and fill the house with the detritus of their lives together. He felt rather sorry for it; instead it had gotten him and Sam, who would be out within the week, most likely, and whose belongings consisted of a duffel bag full of weapons and an angel blade. They signed the deed, Castiel attuned to the strangeness of claiming _Novak_ as his own name on this legally binding document, and Marjorie showed herself out with a few more comments on the quality of the neighborhood and how much they would like it here.

Sam turned to Castiel the moment the door was closed, his genial facade falling away to reveal the serious hunter underneath. “This is great! Hopefully we’ll see the other husband at the block party as well. And it’s a great chance to pry some more information out of Helena.”

“Sam,” Castiel said, “what does one wear to a ‘block party’?”

– ✞ –

Sam had briefed him again before they left the house to walk the two blocks to the neighborhood green, where the block party was being held: ask about the murders, but _unobtrusively,_ just a normal person’s interest in a strange happening that was probably reported in the news. Try to locate Max Rees, the widower who had been married to the strangled housewife. Smile, laugh at jokes. Be ingratiating.

This point worried Castiel. “I’m not a particularly ingratiating person, Sam.”

“Well—pretend! You have Jimmy Novak’s memories, right? Ask yourself, what would Jimmy do?” This seemed to amuse him for a moment. “WWJD yourself, Cas.”

They’d dressed up, or rather, down: Castiel had a cache of Dean’s nicer old clothing so that he could wear different outfits every day, “like a normal person,” Dean had said without meeting his eyes as he’d handed over the bundle of jeans and turtlenecks. They were both in what Sam called “nice-casual flannel,” Sam with his sleeves rolled up again and Castiel in jeans and an old blue shirt about which Dean had grunted, “Brings out your eyes” when he’d handed it over. Castiel had squinted at himself in the bathroom mirror before they’d left. There still seemed something not-quite about him, something that made him look different from the people he passed on the street, some hint of his inhuman nature. But Sam had said he looked “great,” and so Castiel put it out of his mind and dutifully followed one of his humans into the loud, exuberant affair that was apparently a block party.

There were children _everywhere._ Sam nearly tripped over a child once or twice; they swarmed under the picnic tables, into the trees, bouncing beach balls in January and beating each other with their own hats and scarves. Someone had managed to squeeze a bounce house onto one end of the green. Castiel had seen a scene very much like it in Dean’s dreams. The population of Pleasant Gardens had a statistically average number of children for the United States; and yet Castiel felt as though he’d never seen as many children in his life. Sam hovered for a moment, then clapped Castiel on the back bracingly and said, “Just… try not to smite anything,” before he blended into the crowd, off to stumble across an exciting new lead in true Winchester fashion.

From what limited experience Castiel had regarding such social events, he stationed himself near the tables where everyone in the neighborhood, it seemed, had brought some sort of appetizer or dessert. Food was a great source of communion in humans, he found. Perhaps a widower or two might be tempted to talk to the stranger missing his trenchcoat as he picked up mini-hot dogs. In that way, he stood sentinel over the Pleasant Gardens block party.

Until a little girl banged into his knees. He immediately knelt down. “Are you okay?”

She looked at him distrustfully. “Who are you?”

“Castiel. I’m—your new neighbor.”

She brightened. “Like Bobby Than. He moved away last year and had to go to a new school.”

He nodded gravely at her. “Exactly like Bobby Than.”

“Why do you want to live _here?_ Nothing ever happens here.”

Castiel saw an opportunity. “Actually, I heard there was a bit of excitement around here just the other day.”

Her eyes got huge. “You’re talking about _Mrs. Rees.”_ She whispered the name, like saying it out loud gave it mysterious child-devouring powers. “There was an ambulance and people were crying and _everything_.”

Castiel sat down, cross-legged. The girl mimicked him. “Tell me more,” he said.

– ✞ –

Sam had struck out three times in trying to bring casual conversation around to the recent deaths when a voice called out from behind him, “Hey! Sam!”

He spun and saw Helena, curly dark hair pinned up and up to her elbows in paint. She beckoned him over. “Do you art?” she demanded of him when he was close enough to hear without shouting.

“I—uh—”

“That’s a yes. Come on, you’re helping me out.”

Sam tried to protest. “Oh, I—I really should be getting back to my… husband…”

“He can spare you. The minute I saw those hands I knew you made enormous art with them. Come on, I’m swamped.”

It did seem fun. He knelt on her picnic blanket. Immediately, a boy tugged at his sleeve. “I wanna be a bear,” he informed him.

Sam had been to his fair share of block parties as a child—all the adults and unsupervised children running around meant free babysitting so Dean could sneak off and make out with someone behind the bounce house or whatever he did—but the tension in the air was new. Everyone seemed determined to grit their teeth and have a great time, no matter whose funeral they had attended the day before. Maybe they were _all_ in on it. Sam thought of the town back in ‘05, ‘06, that had been sacrificing travelers to the Vanir to keep their charmed existence. He shook himself free of the mild paranoia as a little girl came up to him asking to be painted as a butterfly.

“You’re pretty good at this, you know,” Helena said admiringly as he put the finishing touches on her monarch butterfly mask.

“Thanks,” Sam said, chuffed. “Not as good as you,” he demurred. It was true; Helena was painting reddish swirls on a girl’s chin to make her into some kind of bird with sure, deft fingers. _“Tichodroma muraria,”_ she announced to the girl’s wrinkled nose. “One of my favorites.” She scuttled off without thanking her. “That’s no surprise. It’s my job. I’m a commercial artist. Face-painting is my side hustle,” she winked at him.

“That’s—wow!” Oh no, Sam thought. He’d always had a thing for artsy chicks. “Did you always want to be an artist?”

“Always,” Helena sighed. “My parents didn’t approve. They were always closer to Marjorie—they were both accountants, guess what field she went into—nearly kicked me out of the house when I went to art school instead of business school. But it all worked out.”

“Yeah,” Sam huffed. “I have some experience with that.”

“Oh, yeah? What did you want to be when you grew up?”

“I—” almost went to law school, he almost said. He caught himself just in time; his cover identity _had_ made it to Stanford Law, and was a practicing criminal attorney. Something about Helena put him at ease, made him dangerously close to slipping—maybe it was the soothing sensation of paint under his fingernails, something he hadn’t felt in so long, maybe it was the fact that he’d just spent months in solitary confinement and sometimes still woke up in the middle of night panting for breath and trying not to get up and shake Dean awake just so he would have someone to talk to. He swallowed. “College in general was a big no for my dad. He wanted me to go into the family business. He, ah. Did actually end up kicking me out.”

Helena was quiet for a long time. Sam was kicking himself for making it awkward—this was a _key witness,_ not his therapist—but she said quietly, “It takes a lot of strength to be who you are in the face of your parents.”

“Yeah,” Sam said, warming a little. “Yeah.”

– ✞ –

They had gotten off-topic, but Castiel couldn’t get a word in edgewise around the extremely involved story the girl was telling him about astronauts and flower crowns, and more to the point, found he didn’t want to. He smiled at her as a particularly enthusiastic gesture banged into someone’s cheap plastic cup full of punch.

“Sweet Je—Annabella! Be more careful.”

Castiel looked up, startled, into Marjorie’s face. “Are you bothering Mr. Novak?” she asked sternly.

Annabella glared. “He was bothering me.”

“That’s not true—” Castiel said hastily.

“Oh, don’t worry, I know this one well enough to spot a bald-faced lie. Didn’t I see Lori over by the bounce house? Why don’t you go play with her?”

“Lori stole my hairbands,” Annabella said mutinously, but slunk off. Castiel was sorry to see her go. He let Marjorie pull him to his feet. Her face was ruddy, her hair windswept from the neat updo she’d had it in that afternoon. “I’m sorry about that,” she said. “My eldest. I’ve got two more running around here somewhere, you know how it is.”

“She’s a lovely girl,” Castiel said earnestly. “You should be proud.”

Marjorie’s cheeks pinked. “Yes—well—I saw you over here and thought that you might need a bit of adult company. Not like that!” Castiel tilted his head at her. “I didn’t want you to think we were being unfriendly, or treating you like a stranger. You’re our neighbor now.”

“To be honest, I haven’t noticed. Sam usually does most of the talking,” Castiel confessed. He thought this much honesty was acceptable; Marjorie had seen it for herself, after all. “He has better…’people skills’ than I do.”

“Oh, my Gordon’s the same way. Holes up with a beer and a brat and doesn’t come out of his corner for anything.” She gestured at a rotund man with dark springy hair. “Me, I’m a mingler. Comes with the job, I guess.”

“Do you like being a block warden?” Castiel asked curiously.

“Well, yes. I like doing what I can for my neighbors. They’re my closest friends. Pleasant Gardens doesn’t have much truck with the outside world.” She laughed a little. “Some people like it that way. It feels like a small town in the middle of a big city. Everyone knows everyone. Everyone helps everyone. It can get… claustrophobic though.” A hand flew to her mouth. “I’m not being a very good ambassador, am I? I’ve maybe had a few too many beers.”

“It’s all right,” Castiel said. Honestly, he found it refreshing. Humans were such complex bundles of untruths and self-delusion. He thought that perhaps he ought to get witnesses drunk more often.

“You’ll like it here,” she said earnestly. “Really. It’s a wonderful place to raise children—not that I’m assuming, of course—I. Okay. Put my foot in it again. Sorry.”

“It’s all right.”

“ _Do_ you have plans, though?” she said. “Being a busybody, I know. But everyone will be curious about the new addition to the neighborhood.”

‘I…” They hadn’t discussed this. Castiel scrambled for an answer. “I don’t know. Sam’s never said anything about it. I think he wants children,” he added honestly. “He’s just convinced himself that he can’t have them.”

“Oh.” Marjorie put a hand on his arm. “Well. It’s getting easier, that kind of thing. And you and Sam are a solid couple. I’m sure any adoption agency would see that.” Castiel fumbled for an answer, but luckily Marjorie didn’t seem to need one. “It’s lovely, you know, to see two people in love starting a life together. Especially two people as well-suited for each other as you and Sam. Don’t mind me. I’m just an old romantic. ’Love is like the depths of the ocean…’”

“’Unfathomable and deep and an unbearable weight,’” Castiel said. _When a Warrior Woos a Lass._ He’d “read” that.

Marjorie looked genuinely thrilled. “You like romance novels?”

“I’ve… experienced many of them.”

“Oh, thank God, someone to share my secret hobby with,” she said. She still looked a little drunk. “Husbands are wonderful, but it’s just not the same. Have you read _The Wife Arrangement?_ ”

She carried on trying to guess at the limits of his repertoire, which was vast and unflinching in the face of poor writing. Finally, she hit upon, “Oh, you’ve _got_ to read _Ruining Miss Wrotham._ It’s like Julia Quinn meets Anne Rice. I’ll lend it to you tomorrow morn—tomorrow afternoon.”

“What’s happening tomorrow morning?” Castiel asked curiously.

“Just a memorial,” Marjorie said, faux-casually. “I’ll be back by eleven. I’m sure I’ll see you around, you’ll be in and out so much with moving.”

“For the residents who died?” he said, seizing the opportunity while it was there.

Marjorie went pale. “How did you hear about that?”

“We… read about it in the paper.”

Marjorie scowled. “Damn the _Tribune_ —I thought I’d gotten them to quash the story—and you still wanted to live _here?_ That kind of news would scare most people off,” she said ruefully.

“Sam likes it here,” Castiel said honestly. Marjorie softened.

“Yes, I knew Phoebe. I was on the PTA with her. She’ll be missed,” she said in the awkward way of someone trying to hide a profound dislike of someone they couldn’t speak ill of. “And Steven… Steven was my brother-in-law.”

“I’m sorry,” Castiel said, though he’d known this already.

“Helena’s husband,” she said. She looked down at her hands. “Truth be told, I’m worried about her. She’s been trying too hard to act the same. She… doesn’t have very many friends around here. Always been a bit of a loner. Not many people bringing by casseroles, though, that’s for sure.” She flinched as a particularly high-pitched laugh emanated from the bounce house. “I—sorry. Sorry. I don’t know why I said that—” she tried to use her sleeve to dab at her eyes. Castiel reached behind him and grabbed a wad of napkins to offer to her. She took one gratefully. He shrugged and shoved the rest in his pocket, just in case. “It’s just… have you ever felt responsible for someone? Every bad choice they make, every success they have, like it’s your job to protect them, your job to make sure they’re on the right path?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. “Frequently.”

“I’ve always felt that way about Helena. Our parents never really approved of her. Too free-spirited, you know. And she’s never… made friends easily. For so much of our lives it’s been just me who was there for her… and now it’s just me again. And she puts on a brave face for me, but I know she’s hurting. It turns out you can’t protect anyone from anything.”

“No,” Castiel said, heart oddly heavy. Thinking about the Winchesters making stupid, stupid deals with reapers. About how he couldn’t even find them, couldn’t even protect them from their own fool selves. About Dean pulling away from the hand with which he tried to grasp his shoulder, from (though he didn’t know it) the broken, battered wing outstretched to envelop him, to tuck him against Castiel’s side, to keep him safe. “You can’t.”

– ✞ –

They were packing up when Sam finally got an opportunity to bring it up. “Every month there’s an arts performance at the little community center on the other side of the restaurant,” she was saying. “I used to—” she trailed off. Sam looked up. Helena spoke in clipped, precise tones; it was strange to hear her stumble. “I used to do a painting class there. With my husband.”

Sam leapt for it. “I heard what happened,” he said, though literally no one had been willing to even talk about the bare details of the case to him. “I’m sorry for your loss.”

Helena shot a quick smile at him. “Thank you. I—sometimes I forget. I’m thinking about all the good times we had and I just forget… everything.”

“You’re holding up pretty well for someone who lost their husband last week,” Sam said, trying to sound as non-accusatory as possible. 

“My mom had a philosophy. When we lost my dad, she made us go to school and soccer practice and everything. Told us to fake it until we could feel it again.” She tucked her hair behind her ears determinedly. “I don’t want to… wallow in grief like a war widow. So I’m faking it. And when the grief comes, it’s not as bad. Because I’m doing something with my life. Not waiting for it to be over.”

She stood and offered Sam a hand up. He towered over her at full height, but she had a surprisingly strong grip. He smiled at her admiringly. They’d talked for a long time in between face-painting sessions. She was smart and rebellious and loyal and… reminded him of himself. As the block party packed up, kids returning to their families and families returning to their boxy, identical houses, the sky darkened to twilight and he caught a glimpse of Cas across the lawn, talking to a figure he vaguely recognized.

Helena stuck a hand out. Paint smeared between their palms. “I’ll be seeing you around, Sam,” she said, and dimpled. Sam thought of summer, and paint beneath his nails, and a life that looked very, very far away in the rearview mirror.

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –


	2. Motel Jealousy

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –

They were at a _block party._

Dean ground his teeth and angrily fiddled with the coffeemaker. Damn thing was stuck—coffee grinds or something in the lever. A block party. Oh, it made sense tactically. A nice, low-stakes way to introduce themselves to the neighbors, where free-flowing alcohol and food might loosen the tongues of the uptight sons of bitches that lived in places like this. 

No, what pissed him off was that he could see it so clearly. Sam and Cas, at a block party, and all that that image entailed. Sam, getting a little house, getting a little dog, playing happy families. He and Sam had worked out their issues over the last time he ran away from home—extensively, with fists—but it still nagged at Dean, not as a real possibility that could take Sam away from him but perhaps as a specter of what he should have had, deserved to have.

And Cas. Cas who had tried, in his own way, to leave the life years ago during his stint as Steve. Cas who had given so much, suffered so much, and deserved, maybe more than anyone, peace. It was terrifying how clearly he could picture it. Cas was good with kids, better than he thought he was. They responded to something in him, some shared understanding of innocence passing between them. Cas and a little nephilim baby of his own, bouncing him on his knee, teaching him how to fly. Getting the opportunity to be the dad his dad never was. The thought made Dean’s stomach ache strangely. He’d been getting pains like that a lot lately. Acid reflux, maybe. Tension headaches.

All right, so he was—jealous. Anyone would be if they were stuck pacing a hole in a ratty motel room with peeling carpet and wallpaper from the 70s instead of out working a case like was only right and just. And he was the better actor, damn it. Anywhere but St. Louis…

Anywhere but St. Louis, it would’ve been him and Cas signing that lease—deed—whatever. Holding hands at the restaurant. Making kissy-faces for the onlookers. Pretending to—to have a life together. Married. _Married._

The thought was almost too dear to grab hold of. Not even in his wildest dreams had he dared so far. Wanted so much. And oh, how Dean _wanted._

He didn’t know if it would be better, to have the one thing he ached for most dangled so close, but he thought if he could just steal a moment, a kiss, a lover’s embrace, a moment in which Cas looked at him and Dean _knew_ he wasn’t leaving this time, he could make it stretch far enough to last the rest of his life. This had been his shot to get as close as he could to the thing he longed for most. And he’d ruined it twelve years ago by being a dumbass and letting a shifter get the better of him and his DNA.

He imagined his arm slung over Cas’s shoulders like it belonged there. Against his will, the memory reared up, overriding that blissful fantasy, of today, Sam’s arm around Cas’s shoulders. 

Maybe they had held hands on the way to the block party. Maybe they had kissed tonight. A show for the neighbors. Surely the party was over by now? They might be getting ready for bed. Sam in his sweatpants and t-shirt, as usual. Cas… whenever he’d seen Cas sleep before, he’d been exhausted from low power. He wondered how Cas had slept as a human. Not well, probably.

Dean burned to see inside of that house, to put a name and a cause to the rushing jealousy that burned through his veins. Here, he could only wait and stew.

He knew what it was he felt. Knew the name for it, even if it caught in his throat every time he thought he was brave enough to this time, _this time_ , spit it out. He knew why he thought of tucking Cas into the lee of his body at night, protecting him, guarding his sleep from the bad dreams Dean knew occasionally haunted him. Or of the warmth of his hands and the heat of his body and the steely blue of his eyes on… other nights.

And he knew—he _knew_ —that Cas wouldn’t want that, want a screwed-up, broken-down hunter. He seemed grateful to have the bunker as a waystation, a place to rest after traumas like what had happened with Ramiel, but Cas spent most of his time away from the bunker, away from Dean. No matter how much Dean asked. No matter what speeches Cas made about family and love and—Dean’s mind skittered away. He couldn’t think about what Cas had said to them, to all of them, in the barn last week. It was too big, too frightening. It might swallow him whole and spit him out chewed-up and useless. If he thought about it too long, he might—get a crazy notion, like doing something about it. Like asking.

They’d had plenty of opportunity, God knew. Moments where Dean could picture himself leaning just a little closer, touching just a bit too much. A moment where he could’ve said, _I love you too._ And then—nothing. He couldn’t imagine what Cas would do next. Maybe laugh at him. Maybe shy away, disgusted by bodily want. Maybe tilt his head, embarrassed on Dean’s behalf that he’d misinterpreted things so badly. Maybe (worst of all) stare at him with his huge blue eyes (like the sea on a clear, perfect day, some terrible part of his mind whispered) and say, _Dean_ —

Because, after all, Cas _could_ do so much better. Someone smart. Someone who would go to bat for him. Someone who wasn’t paralyzed with terror every time he touched him for fear that it might somehow give him away. And that was the worst thought. Maybe Cas did want a screwed-up, broken-down old hunter, but not Dean. Maybe he _should_ want that.

Dean clenched his fist. A loud sound startled him out of his reverie. He blinked in surprise at the floor, where the coffeemaker lay in shattered pieces.

– ✞ –

The problem eluded both of them until Sam had started yawning like he was trying to swallow the book in front of him whole. They looked at the bed, then at the tiny loveseat of a sofa in the living room, far too short for Cas to be able to lie down comfortably, much less Sam. “I don’t need sleep, Sam,” Cas said, obviously hoping to nip the situation in the bud.

“Come on, Cas, I know that worked when you had the full force of heaven behind you, but you can’t tell me a good night’s sleep doesn’t help now that you’re low on power,” Sam said. Cas scowled. It was true, much to his chagrin. “We can sleep tip-to-tail, like Dean and I used to when we were kids. The bed’s, uh. Definitely big enough.” Whoever prefurbished these houses had spared no expense when it came to the sleeping arrangements of the two gay guys they assumed were living here: the bed was even extra-tall, like far too few beds in Sam’s miserable life.

Cas moved toward the bed, fully clothed. Sam opened his mouth to say something, then closed it. You know what, he would take the small victory that Cas had removed his shoes already. He’d once found Cas sacked out watching Netflix with his feet up _on Sam’s freshly cleaned bedsheets_. Also, Cas didn’t mock Sam about bringing lore books to bed, unlike his usual roommate.

Cas paused at the edge of the bed, looking like he wanted to say something. Sam glanced over quizzically. “These are good people here,” Cas said.

Sam softened. “Yeah. Yeah, they’re all good people.” He set aside the huge tome of demonic iconography cradled on his lap.

“What do you think of the case?”

Sam sighed. “I don’t know, honestly. When we were walking around the neighborhood earlier, I scanned for EMF and got zilch, which rules out my ghost theory. Could be a witch, like Dean is insisting, but they usually go for flashier bangs. And in a place this small and isolated, it might be a cursed object, maybe passed down through a will. Or maybe it just magically transported itself into its next victim’s pocket, we’ve seen that before, too.”

Cas nodded earnestly. “And how would you track something like that down?”

Sam gave Cas a Look. “What’s up, Cas? You’ve never been this interested in hunting before. Well, except for that one time…”

Cas barreled past that. “I know, Sam. But it’s become clear to me in recent weeks that… I could do with some more knowledge of yours and your brother’s skills.” A heavy cloud had settled in his voice with the last words. Sam sat up, alarmed.

“Whoa. What happened, Cas?”

“Nothing,” Cas said too quickly, then, seeming to realize how bad of a lie that was, he sighed and said, “While you and Dean were… detained, there was a case in Lancaster, Missouri. I went there, I tried… I tried to do what you do. Or to do what I could. To save people. But I couldn’t.”

“Cas,” Sam said, brimming with sympathy. It was never easy, losing someone you’d felt it was your responsibility to save. “That should never have been on you. It was our own stupid faults for getting locked up.”

“Maybe,” Cas said. Sam snorted in thanks. “But I just thought—maybe I should get more experience. Hunting. For next time.”

And there was always, always, a next time. Sam knew that better than anyone.

“Yeah, well, the sooner we solve this case, the sooner we can get out of here,” Sam sighed. On to the next case. The next poor soul. The thought made him tired. He hadn’t… been sleeping well, not since Colorado. Dreaming of the room he’d been kept in and the way, in the end, dealing with Billie had seemed worth it. Anything had seemed worth it to escape.

Cas cocked his head at him, like something about Sam’s tone of voice had ruffled his feathers. “Is that really what you want?”

“Of course it is,” Sam said, startled.

“It’s just… you’re different here. Lighter.”

That was just Friendly Neighbor Sam, Sam wanted to say, distinct from but related to Reassuring Agent Sam and Definitely-Not-A-Serial-Killer-I-Swear Sam. He couldn’t, though. He knew what Cas meant. The energy, the feeling of being tapped in to the flotsam and jetsam of everyday life. The people churning around him. The children. It made him feel claustrophobic, but in a good way, like the mental scars from six weeks in the hole were healing over. Just one day in Pleasant Gardens had been… restful. Sam thought he might sleep without nightmares tonight.

“It’s nothing, Cas,” he said instead. Cas had plenty of his own problems to worry about, between Kelly Kline and Billie and his own self-sacrificing stupidity and guilt. He didn’t need to hear about Sam’s solitary confinement-induced trauma as well.

“I’m familiar with your nightmares, Sam,” Cas said, refusing to let it drop.

“Yeah,” Sam admitted. If anyone had the right to make that claim, it was Cas. He relented. “You know, Cas, the picture-perfect house, a wife, kids, maybe in a neighborhood like this… it was what I wanted for a long time.”

“But not anymore?”

Cas was staring at him, that look he sometimes got of trying to bore into your soul. Sam didn’t get it as much as Dean, who he sometimes seemed to have whole silent conversations with in the blink of an eye, who understood each other implicitly and who each had their heads up their asses, but he got it enough to be familiar with the sensation of being laid open for scrutiny, for Cas’s curious soaking-up of the world’s complexities. And he knew what Cas was really asking. That he knew, somehow, whether it was because he’d taken on Sam’s pain or because he had been guarding him and his brother for long enough to just _know,_ about the secret, shameful thoughts Sam had sometimes, the ones he had long given up thinking of practically but whose ghosts still haunted him. Thoughts of _what might have been_ about Amelia. About… about Jess. He wanted to know… if Sam had made peace with them. If he ever could.

Sam wondered why Cas was asking. If he had his own dreams that he desperately wanted to lay to rest. Maybe he was thinking of Heaven. Maybe of something else. “Cas—what I do, that’s important too. I’m the guy who makes sure that other people get to have this. I protect them. I chose not to have this life. It’s still… special to me, the thought that maybe I could’ve had something like this. But it’s not everything to me. Not anymore.”

Cas was quiet for a long time. Sam peered at him through the dim light of the one bedside lamp. “Thank you, Sam,” he said at last. He clambered awkwardly into bed beside him. “And good night.”

– ✞ –

That night, as he did regularly, Dean dreamed of Cas.

Cas wasn’t always a starring feature in his dreams, but he was usually present, just casually beside Dean in the same way Sam was; the other night he’d dreamed of a rugaru at a ballet and Cas and Sam right behind him, trying to tiptoe through the tulips in pink ballet slippers without tipping off the monster and getting themselves killed. On other nights, Cas was… front and center. He’d stopped listening to “Cherry Pie” before he went to bed for exactly that reason. He already knew what he’d see.

But tonight, he was dreaming of something that had already happened. He was in the barn, Ramiel’s barn, and Cas was there. Standing in front of him, whole, healthy, glowing with power, like he had been after Crowley had snapped the Lance. Looking at him the way he sometimes looked at him, with such affection that Dean almost leaned over, almost risked his heart to make that look last for a moment longer, almost said—

Cas was looking at him, and he said, “I love—”

But something was wrong, black sludge was burbling out of his mouth and the flush of fever came to his cheeks, and Dean raced to grab him but he was already convulsing, like he had in those last terrible moment—and there was no Lance to break or demon to kill, there was just Cas, choking in his arms, and Dean knew it was because of him. Because of what he had almost said. He knew, in the deep, instinctual way dream-logic worked, that Cas would not be dying if he hadn’t loved him. That Dean killed everything he touched, especially the things that loved him. “Cas,” he cried out, but he was helpless as Cas withered in front of him, dissolving into another pile of goo, another monster that had taken his only love away from him.

He blinked awake and wished instantly that he hadn’t broken the coffeepot. It was still hours before dawn, and he buried his face in his pillow, panting, wishing Cas was there to soothe the nightmare away the way Dean knew he had swept so many of his Hell nightmares away. Grateful Cas was far, far away for what he might read in Dean in that moment. For what Dean might have been stupid enough to do right then.

“I love you,” Cas had said. “I love all of you.”

Dean spent the rest of the night lying awake, aching, wishing that Cas had meant it the way Dean had wanted him to mean it.

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –


	3. Rendezvouz

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –

Castiel woke long before Sam—he may have needed to sleep now, but he was still an angel—and lay in bed beside him thinking about these people who were now his neighbors, their kindness and their unhappiness and their helplessness in the face of a witch or a cursed object. When the sky brightened with the first streaks of the sun, he slipped out of bed—Sam _mrmph_ ed and flung an arm over where Castiel had been just moments before—changed, and stepped outside into the chill predawn air. He wandered the neighborhood like that, in one of Dean’s old t-shirts and a weathered pair of jeans. Morning mist drifted among the branches of the overhanging trees, giving everything a vaguely white, washed-out feeling. He walked the empty streets, trying to feel what Sam and Dean had felt when they had entered this neighborhood, what supernatural forces they might have been able to divine from their presence alone. Wondered where he had gone wrong just weeks ago in Lancaster, Missouri. Swore not to get it wrong again.

Annabella chattering on about her school, her friends, her life. No, this time he wouldn’t get it wrong.

There was a coffee shop near the north edge of the neighborhood, tucked cozily between two houses of the same design as his and Sam’s—and wasn’t that an unusual thought, that he owned something beyond the trenchcoat on his back and maybe a car. He’d experienced humanity with nothing before, and now, apparently, he was playing at what humanity looked like when you had everything. He drifted toward the little stone-walled shop, drawn to the cheerful lights and low, warm murmur of voices and occasional clink of ceramic that split the quiet of the street at five in the morning. Sam would want coffee. There were times he suspected the Winchesters lived off of coffee, trouble, and spite.

He had just collected the order when someone called his name. He turned and saw Marjorie, hair up in a sweatband and smelling faintly like exertion and the air outside. She reminded him of a small tempest of frizzy dark hair and limbs. She had never resembled her daughter more. Cas still didn’t quite understand why Marjorie seemed to have immediately adopted him as a friend, but it was a pleasant change, nevertheless, to have friends that weren’t Sam and Dean.

“Cas!” Marjorie bounced over. “I’m so glad I caught you before—well. I didn’t realize you were such an early riser too. Gordon, bless him, once he’s out he’s out until the alarm goes off. I bet Sam is the same way, hm?”

“Yes,” Castiel said. It seemed safest.

“I brought the book I was telling you about— _Ruining Miss Wrotham_? I was planning to give it to you after the—after the memorial. But I’ve caught you here, so it’s just as well.” She pulled a slim novel out of her backpack. Balancing both his coffees carefully in one hand, he took it gingerly. On the cover, a pale woman in a luxurious red dress was swooning into the muscled arms of a man whose torso only was on display. “Kind of awkward to be smuggling a potboiler in your coat at a funeral, huh?”

“Why?”

For some reason, this made her turn very pink. “I—the—you know, the…”

“Ah,” Castiel said, and then, “say no more,” and he winked at her as though he understood. He didn’t understand, but he had discovered that if he behaved in this way, people would usually stop talking about whatever it was he didn’t understand.

Relieved, she nodded at the coffees he was carrying. “Who’s who?”

Castiel looked down and belatedly realized that in addition to Sam’s plain black coffee, he had automatically ordered Dean one of the frothy whipped-cream drinks he liked but refused to order himself in case anyone was watching. “Uh,” he said. “They’re, uh, both for Sam. He likes variety in the mornings.”

Marjorie burst out into surprised giggles. Castiel smiled at her bemusedly. 

“Cas,” she said, suddenly shy, “I appreciate you listening to me ramble on last night. It’s—it’s been a while since I’ve found it so easy to open up to anyone.”

“Of course,” he said, touched. “It’s not often that I hear that. My social skills are… subpar.”

“Oh, well now, I don’t know about that,” Marjorie said, instantly warm and cajoling again. “You managed to snag a catch like Sam, didn’t you?”

“Sam… has a great deal of patience dealing with my… eccentricities. He’s a good man.” Castiel rearranged the coffees and book so that he could hold it all comfortably. He thought of Marjorie returning to her home, to the bed she shared with her husband and the house with her children, and felt a strange mixture of envy and protectiveness. “It was nice to see the two of you. It was… refreshing to see someone for whom it worked out.”

“What out?” she asked, puzzled.

“Love,” Castiel said simply.

“Oh!—well, you’ve got it down pretty well yourself,” Marjorie sputtered.

“Not really,” Castiel said. “Not at all.”

“Cas?”

Right. Oversharing. A perennial fault of his, among many others. “I’m sorry. I’m being… a ‘Debbie downer,’ as the phrase goes. Thank you for the book.”

“Oh, of course.” Marjorie smiled uncertainly. “And come by for dinner sometime, all right? Both of you.”

“We will.” Castiel paused, looking at the cover, at the heroine’s hands clutching at the hero’s strong grip on her shoulder. He thought he understood why humans read this kind of thing. He wondered if Marjorie had seen something in him that had inspired her to lend him this book. “Marjorie, do you find that these books help you… fill a hole in you? A want for something more? Something you can’t have?”

She shifted. “I suppose that’s why I got into romance novels in the first place. Gordon is a good man—I’m lucky, I really am, but sometimes you don’t want _good_ , you want… epic. Sweeping. Gordon—well, he doesn’t take out the trash and he proposed to me at a movie theater and—well, nobody’s perfect. But it’s nice to pretend, isn’t it?”

“The desire to escape into a fantasy. I can understand that.”

“What brought you into romance novels, Cas?” she asked lightly.

“Truthfully,” Castiel said, “I find the writing insipid and the romance very unlike my own admittedly limited experience. There is so much emphasis on the consummation of the heroes’ desires. Love to me is something altogether different.”

Marjorie had gone still. “What is love to you, Cas?”

“Longing,” Castiel said quietly. “Longing and never having.” He looked down, readjusted his grip. “Thank you again for the book,” he said, and slipped out the coffeehouse door, the light tinkling of a bell following him out onto the street.

– ✞ –

“Yeah. Yeah, okay. My money’s still on witch, but you do what you gotta do. Mm-hmm. See him then.” Dean paused. “Tell Cas… tell him not to do anything I wouldn’t do.”

 _“What, like eat a salad?”_ Sam’s voice crackled out over the line snidely.

“Just tell him, bitch.”

 _“Okay, okay, jeez. Okay, I’ll call you back when we have anything.”_ Dean flung his cell onto the bed. Sam and Cas had ruled out a ghost, but that still left an abundance of other terrible things that could’ve taken up residence in this neighborhood. Cas was coming by later today to brief him more thoroughly on the residents and their problems so that Dean could do some digging in the St. Louis archives. He was shocked, personally, that a stuck-up quasi-suburban enclave like this didn’t have its own town paper, but he supposed that was a prime directive of wanting to live a quiet life: no getting your name in the news.

Until then, he had nothing to do but pace and think. And he didn’t very much want to be alone with his own thoughts at the moment.

So when his phone rang again, he answered it without thinking, secretly grateful to Sam for being such an absentminded loser. “Forget something?” he sniped.

Quiet for a moment. Then: _“Dean?”_ his mother’s voice rang out over the line.

He fumbled the phone. “Hey! Hey, Mom, I’m sorry about that, I thought it was Sammy…”

 _“No worries,”_ she sounded amused. _“Got a case?”_

“Yeah. Yeah, we’re tracking some weird deaths in St. Louis. How about you?”

_“Fresh off a ghoul hunt. I was just… checking in. I know we didn’t part on… the best of terms.”_

“Hey, Mom, what happened at Ramiel’s place was not your fault.”

 _“…Right,”_ she said. _“Everything okay? You sound stressed._ ”

“Yeah, just cooped up.” A brilliant idea struck him. “Hey, where are you? We could use an extra pair of hands on this one. I can’t be seen too much in public… it’s a whole thing.”

“ _Nevada. Sorry, honey.”_ She seemed genuinely apologetic. _“And I’ve got a line on this vampire nest in Idaho… I could say no, pass it off to someone else, if you really need the help?”_ Ever since they’d gotten out of Presidential Assassin Jail, she’d been solicitous, checking in with them even on normal milk runs. He thought that she felt guilty for not being there to deal with Lucifer, though she shouldn’t have. They’d handled it and all she would’ve done was get captured and thrown into the hole, too.

“Nah, don’t worry, Mom. Cas and us’ll take care of it.”

 _“Castiel is there with you? How is he?”_

“Fine. He’s healing up. He and Sam are, uh, pretending to be a couple on this one. Because of the whole can’t-show-my-face-in-public thing.”

 _“Oh.”_ She paused. _“And you’re… all right with that?”_

Dean sputtered. “Of course I’m all right, why wouldn’t I be all right?”

 _“It’s just that at the diner, the two of you seemed… never mind.”_ Dean chewed his lip angrily, his face flaming-hot. If even Mom had noticed, what chance did he have that Cas, who had spent most of his free time over the last eight years staring at Dean, hadn’t? _Cas is oblivious_ , he thought firmly to himself. He had to be, for Dean’s sanity. At least Mom didn’t continue her train of thought. As long as no one said it out loud, he could convince himself that no one knew. That it wasn’t public knowledge how stupidly, incredibly _gone_ he was—

“ _Dean?”_

—for someone who could never love him back.

He found his voice. “Yeah, Mom. Yeah, I’m here.”

 _“Good. Listen, I was just calling to check in. I know I should do that more,”_ she said, clearly winding up the conversation. Like mother, like son, he thought bitterly. Running away the moment _feelings_ got involved.

“Mom,” he found himself saying, “did you ever get… jealous. Over Dad?”

She was quiet. She had to know why he was asking. Dean closed his eyes and marinated in his own patheticness.

 _“A lot, before we started going steady,”_ she said. Her voice, much to his surprise, had taken on a soft, sweet melancholy. _“And sometimes after. That was a tumultuous few years. Especially after we got engaged—I swear, women have a sort of sixth sense for it.”_

Dean scratched at the back of his head. He wouldn’t know anything about that. But the tension he’d been carrying around between his shoulders for the last couple of days, ever since Sam had looked up and said those terrible, ridiculous words, “ _I was thinking Cas and I could do it,”_ seemed to ease slightly at such a compelling distraction. He leaned forward on the edge of the bed, like if he stayed very silent and attentive he could coax Mom into more stories about the Dad that he’d only briefly known, the one who had loved him unconditionally.

He’d never had a parent he could really go to for advice before. It felt… nice.

“ _He was always… popular with women. Those blue eyes… the first year we knew each other, we used to play these little games. Make each other jealous on purpose. It was heady. To know… that someone wanted you like that. To want someone like that.”_

Dean swallowed. “Did Dad ever… did _you_ ever…?”

_“No. All of those boys, all of those girls, it was never serious. I never felt the way about anyone the way I felt about John.”_

“He felt the same way,” Dean said roughly.

“ _I know,”_ Mom sighed. _“I sometimes wonder… if that was a good thing or not.”_ Dean bit his tongue, swallowed down whatever it was that might come spewing out if he didn’t check himself. Mary cleared her throat. She said, more lightly, _“Jealousy is a sign, you know? It’s your heart telling you that this person—this one—that’s the one you ought to keep._ ”

“Yeah,” Dean said hollowly. The one you oughta keep.

 _“Dean?”_ Mary asked. He said he was all right. What else could he say?

After Mom hung up, he stared into the wallpaper of the motel room for a long, long time.

– ✞ –

One thing Marjorie Peterson and Dean Winchester had in common, though neither of them knew it, was that when they needed to clear their heads, to shake off the cobwebs and sadness of something strange and painful, they went for a drive. So after the memorial, she waved to her husband, got into her Mini Cooper, and set off on the highways and service roads of St. Louis. 

The memorial had felt like—like someone walking over her grave. Like someone had unleashed a plague upon her little neighborhood, and you couldn’t tell who was in its sights next, only that someone was going to be. Ridiculous, of course. These deaths had been accidents—tragic, sudden, and senseless. She wended her way through the cars that always choked these roads at any hours and wished not for the first time that she had the time to go out on the farm roads way past the suburbs, ignore speed limits, hit the throttle and just drive. She had responsibilities, though. Annabella had a dance class. She needed to check on Helena.

So it was sheer coincidence that she was passing by Mike’s Motel when a car she recognized for being so out-of-place among the Volvos and SUVs that were scattered throughout Pleasant Gardens pulled up in the parking lot and a man got out of the huge, hulking truck. He was wearing what Cas had been wearing earlier in the day: a well-loved AC/DC t-shirt and jeans. She only caught a glimpse of him, striding from his big, hulking truck to one of the doors of the motel rooms, only saw a hint of someone’s hand holding the door open for Cas to step inside. Then they were gone, Marjorie propelled onward by the inexorable rush of traffic.

But she was shaken, and the rest of the drive didn’t have the same therapeutic effects that it normally did. What she had seen—one of her new neighbors walking into a hotel room under the bright light of day when they had no reason to be there—it seemed right out of a soap opera. A drug deal, maybe. But Marjorie thought she had a better idea of what was going on.

Cas had seemed so sad that morning, for all that he had woken up with the man he’d married in his arms. Distant and lonely.

 _Longing. Longing and never having_.

She thought, rather, that Cas was getting what he thought he couldn’t have after all.

She pulled into her driveway and sat behind the wheel for a long, long time. Thinking about romance novels and escapism and what you might want to escape from. About an illicit rendezvous in a grimy hotel room and the romance, or lack thereof, of it all. Of telling Sam.

God, she had to tell Sam.

– ✞ –

Castiel pulled up outside Dean’s low-budget motel room at two o’clock precisely. He hesitated at the door, hoping against hope that Dean’s bad mood had dissipated with the passage of time. In his experience, Dean’s inexplicable moods only worsened when left to fester.

He was proven right mere moments after Dean yanked the door open and ushered him in, glancing over his shoulder like a true paranoiac. “Don’t just stand around drawing attention to yourself, get in here,” he growled. Castiel dutifully followed him inside. Dean was evidently making the most of the single king-sized bed, if the way the bedcovers were flung about and his weapons were strewn all over the room were any indication. He haphazardly cleared a patch on the bed and gestured for Castiel to sit down. “Make yourself at home. Mi motel room is su motel room.”

 _“Gracias_ ,” Castiel said uncertainly, not totally convinced that Dean’s weak attempt at Spanish required a response in the language. Dean quirked the shadow of a grin at him.

Settled in the motel’s single chair, he looked Castiel over more closely, seeming to take him in for the first time. He swallowed. Castiel watched the bobbing of his throat as though he could divine which of the many complex facets of Dean he was going to get today by close and careful study. “Nice duds,” he finally said. “The, uh, hand-me-down look suits you.”

Castiel narrowed his eyes. “All you gave me in that duffel bag was flannels and _this_. It’s not exactly as though I had a lot of variety.”

“No, that’s not what I—ugh. Take a compliment, you—fine. Bring me up to speed on what’s going on in Stepford.”

Castiel quickly gave him a rundown of what he and Sam—mostly Sam, to be honest—had uncovered: who had enemies, who had secrets, who seemed to be hiding something out of the ordinary. When he got to Marjorie, Gordon, and Helena, he added, “Marjorie might be a valuable source of information. She’s a longstanding member of the neighborhood and is often called upon to mediate minor disputes.”

“Don’t think that who parked in whose spot is going to lead to much information on a murder investigation, Cas,” Dean said. “Wait, Marjorie? Marjorie-from-the-restaurant Marjorie?”

“Yes. We’ve become quite close over the last few days.”

“ _Close?_ How do you mean, close?”

“She and I discussed her worry for her sister and she lent me a romance novel.”

“Dude,” Dean snorted. “She wants you to be her gay best friend.”

Castiel favored him with a frown. “Regardless of her intentions, I feel she’s a valuable source of information. Sam agrees.”

“Well, if _Sam_ agrees,” Dean said mockingly. “What do you even need me here for, anyway? You and Sam seem to have it all figured out.”

“Dean,” Castiel said earnestly. “You know we need you. The both of us do.”

That deflated him. “I know, Cas,” he said, scrubbing at the back of his head. “It’s just… tough, being cooped up in here. Nothing to do but read books and watch cars pass. I probably won’t even get to shoot anything. Great.”

“I’ll let you have my shot when we find the monster,” Castiel offered. Dean smiled at him. It was a small smile, just the suggestion of humor, but Castiel took it for what it was: a peace offering. He knew each one of Dean’s smiles by heart.

“Let’s get to the rest of these Pleasantville droids,” Dean sighed. Castiel scowled at him—they may have been a little uptight and nosy, but in his experience the people of Pleasant Gardens were largely good, all in all, with one obvious possible suggestion of whoever was killing their neighbors—but continued. “Helena is her sister, the widow of the first victim. Sam has been over at her house and found no sign of hex bags or other tools of witchcraft.”

“Seems to rule her out. You and Sam can’t search the whole place door-to-door, though. Hey, what about Marge? She seem the witchy type?”

“No,” Castiel said simply.

“Damn. Would’ve made the job a lot easier.”

“Maybe it’s not a witch. Sam brought up the possibility last night of a cursed object making its rounds through the neighbors.”

Dean’s lips puckered briefly at the mention of Sam, but he continued smoothly, “If that were the case, I’d expect to see some more overlap between the types of victim or how they died. Cursed objects usually gravitate toward a specific kind of victim, but this one is going after residents and passerbys alike. That delivery kid was a teenager working a minimum-wage job. Barely had anything in common with the other vics at all. No, I think our best bet is to find a human connection, someone who had beef with all three victims, and take them out.”

Castiel had been listening raptly; here, he nodded sharply. It was always amazing to watch Dean or Sam’s mind work, skillfully eliminating possibilities until only the truth was left. Castiel was a strategist, but the more he hunted, the more he thought he wasn’t cut out for this type of investigative digging, so different from the games a tactician played with a known enemy. With a melancholy determination, he felt sure that his decision weeks ago, to kill Billie, had been the correct one. The Winchesters were better at this than anyone else. They needed to live. To save people. To right a monstrous world.

Dean especially. He needed to live. Castiel didn’t dwell on why.

Dean sighed and flung the notes he’d been taking on the information that Castiel had memorized aside, to be perused later. “So, Cas,” he said, and Castiel got the creeping feeling that he was about to get to the heart of Dean’s bad mood over the last few days, “how’s bunking with Sam? Smelly and finicky, am I right?”

“Sam is a very considerate roommate,” Castiel said dryly, looking around at where Dean had thoroughly colonized every inch of the motel room.

“Yeah, whatever. But how does it feel to be… you know, all lovey-dovey with him? I know you don’t exactly have a lot of experience… in that area.”

Castiel stiffened. “That hasn’t been a problem. Sam, I believe, would be a very attentive significant other.”

“Yeah, okay. Guess this is good experience, right? For the next Nora, or Hannah, or whatever.” Dean’s voice had grown shuttered and closed-off. Castiel scowled at his impenetrable behavior.

“I was Hannah’s brother and Nora’s babysitter, Dean. I’m not really looking for a repeat of either occasion.”

Dean relaxed, for whatever baffling reason Dean ever did anything. “It doesn’t bother you at all?” he said with more lightness. “You know, playing gay?”

“Why would it bother me?” Castiel asked quietly.

“Because—you know. You’re not.”

Castiel stood quickly. His too-human heart was racing in his chest. He knew what Dean was doing. He knew what Dean was doing, and he was _not_ going to be party to it. “No,” he said, clipped. “I should be going. Sam will call you when we get anything new.”

He strode out to the parking lot, ignoring Dean calling his name behind him. He’d gotten used to Dean pushing him away. But every time, it stung.

– ✞ –

Who would’ve thought that the little blue house, which yesterday had seemed like such a symbol of hope, of starting a new life together, would today feel so heavily charged with secrecy? Marjorie pulled up outside Sam’s (and Cas’s) empty, waiting house, so full of potential, and dithered on the curb for a good five minutes. For a moment, she watched the kids—still out of school—romp around the large oak tree in front of the Dengs’. She knew it wasn’t her place, not really. But Sam… he deserved to know. _He’s a good man,_ Cas had told her, and she’d believed him.

She’d want to know. If it was Gordon.

Before she could talk herself out of it, she took quick, clipped steps up to the door and knocked. The sound of someone scrambling to answer, and then Sam’s face appeared, genial and unsuspecting. “Marjorie,” he said. “This is a pleasant surprise.”

She’d forgotten how tall he was. “Sam,” she said tensely. “There’s something I have to—”

“Is that my sister?” a voice called over Sam’s shoulder, and suddenly Helena was there, disheveled as always, her dark head bobbing into view at Sam’s elbow.

“Is something wrong?” Sam asked, and both of them looked at her with concern. She withered; not here. Not with Helena, a friend to Sam though she may have become, standing watch over… whatever reaction he chose to have. Helena could be loud, tactless in declaring what she thought was just and fair. And news of this kind… it deserved to be imparted privately, not with a guest hovering outside in the next room.

“…Nothing’s wrong,” she said. “I was just… checking to see how you were? Settling in?”

“Yeah, everything’s great,” Sam said, his brow still furrowed. “Helena’s been particularly welcoming—”

“See?” Helena interjected. “I can play nice with others.”

“—but everyone around here has been great.” He peered at her. “Are you sure there’s not something you want to tell me?”

She forced herself to smile and shake her head. She’d lost the nerve for it by now, would have to work up her courage again and come by another time. Cas would be… occupied for a while, she assumed. She had time. “No, I just wanted to stop by,” she lied. “Good to see you’re making friends.”

Sam nodded and made little soothing noises of understanding. Beyond his shoulder, Helena was staring at her. Growing up, Helena had always seemed to be able to read her with uncanny skill and precision. A chill came over Marjorie now, as Helena stared at her, a dangerous spark in her eye: the unsettling feeling that Helena knew _exactly_ what she was thinking.

– ✞ –

Dean proved he was not at all bothered by Cas storming out by diving headfirst into the pile of research he’d compiled on every resident of (shudder) _Pleasant Gardens._

Lewis Kent: 59, investment banker. Single father. Had a teenage daughter who might’ve been fooling around with the delivery boy. Normal schooling, normal college, mind-numbingly normal life afterward. Sam, Dean thought with a flash of distaste, would like him. Not exactly the type to fool around with witchcraft, for all that he might’ve had a motive. Dean tossed his file aside.

He wasn’t thinking about Cas.

Lorna Wilcox: 33, substitute teacher. Married to Brian Wilcox, possibly pregnant. Possibly not with Brian’s child. Called to complain to the delivery company about the victim making unwanted advances toward her. She barely even seemed to have known the other two victims, as she hadn’t been in the PTA or classes at the community center. Sleeping around, Dean thought, was not an executable offense. Toss.

He wasn’t thinking about Cas and the way his eyes had flashed (like the intense blue of a flame, or a lightning strike, some terrible part of his mind whispered). His clipped “no” and what that might mean. No, and Cas was pissed about his human hang-ups? He’d rolled his eyes before at… certain remarks Dean may have made while deep in his cups about types of women and their relative skill in the sack. No, but Cas really was uncomfortable with it and just determined to power through, for Dean and Sam’s sake? That sounded worryingly like him, but somehow Dean didn’t think so. No, Cas wasn’t… _not_ gay? Cas didn’t care? Dean knew better than to trust his own instincts on this one, colored with desperate, heaving desire as they were.

Brian Wilcox: 38, math professor. Was the type to fly into jealous rages. Had an assault charge from four years ago that had been dropped before it went to trial. In school, had gotten in trouble for brawling. The type to settle his scores with fisticuffs, not witchcraft. Still. Violent husbands were always a possibility. Keep.

Dean and Cas… they’d been drawing closer, some terrible gravity exerting its influence on them both, just missing collision by the skins of their teeth. Since he’d gotten Cas back from Lucifer. Since Cas had tried to die with him to stop Amara. He felt constantly on the brink of something that they could topple over at any minute. Cas had said, after all, in that barn, with Ramiel coming to kill them all. He’d said—

Samantha Long: 44, pediatrician. Ran a basic clinic out of the back of the community center, passing out flu shots and yearly physicals. Definitely had the access to slip a hex bag into someone’s pocket, or, hell, just give them some kind of drug that wrecked their balance. Taught zumba at the community center. Had been on the PTA with the second victim, had treated the first victim, but had gotten her groceries from another service entirely. Had been out of town during the first murder, too. Toss.

And that night, they’d come so close, so close. Dean, berating him for finding himself on death’s door, _again_ , had leaned close to him in the car afterward, Sam asleep in the backseat, found himself only a hair’s breadth away from Cas, and thought: _I could kiss him._ He’d thought that before, but never with such immediate terror, never with the thought, _I’m going to kiss him unless someone stops me._ And Cas had watched him, with deep, heavy-lidded eyes, hadn’t leaned forward but hadn’t leaned back either, and he’d almost done it. Almost. In the end, he’d chickened out. He still couldn’t say why. It was the fear of being wrong, of course. The fear that for all that Cas had given up for him, for all that Cas sometimes looked at him like Dean could do anything, he was being a guardian angel, not… whatever Dean thought was going on between them. That he’d said _I love you_ and really had meant _all of you_. The fear of tipping over that edge and finding only rocks below.

Nina Castillo: 40, stay-at-home mom. Definitely the kind of woman with the time to learn a little hoodoo on the side. Chaired the PTA but didn’t ever seem to have officially crossed paths with the first or third vic. Won “Steward of St. Louis” award for her local sustainability initiative. He didn’t trust those tree-hugging hippie freaks. Keep.

And more, and more. It was the fear that maybe if they did work it out, if he had moved in for the kiss, it wouldn’t have been—what he’d dreamed of late at night. That they didn’t _work_ together as a couple, not the way they worked together as friends, as best friends, as blood brothers. Brotherhood—that he could do. He hadn’t screwed it up, catastrophically, over the years. Loving someone in the way he wanted to love Cas—that was a whole different can of worms. And he couldn’t risk it, not with _Cas_ , he couldn’t risk losing Cas the way he’d lost Cassie or Lisa, anyone else, anyone else he could try this wild experiment with, but not Cas. Not when he’d already lost Cas so often, for other reasons.

Helena Morrison: 31, artist. Married to the first vic. Turned relatively scant profits off of gallery sales. Taught art classes at the community center. No signs of witchcraft in her house, according to Sam. A few local news clippings about her art.

Cas storming out, something hot and terrifying blazing in his eyes. Sam with his arm around Cas and yesterday’s shattered coffeepot. The way that when he had opened the door, Cas had smiled at him, and Dean had felt years’ worth of weariness and resignation lift from his shoulders.

Otherwise she stayed out of the paper, except for this one article about a fire at her home—

Cas saying, “ _I love you—_ ”

A fire at her home. Her dad perished in the blaze.

He scrambled to check the dates. She would’ve been six months old.

Dean grabbed his gun and ran for the car.

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –


	4. Understandings

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –

Castiel—well, came home, he supposed—while the sun was still high and cold, the heavy clouds of January flanking it in the sky. He sat moodily at the wheel of his pick-up for a moment, thinking about Dean, impudent Dean, impatient Dean, Dean who listened to him say “I love you” and then asked things of him like _that_ , and wondered at his terribly human tenderness towards him. He sighed and climbed out of his truck—

—and was slammed back against the car door with crushing invisible force. He struggled blindly, lashing out with his broken wings, and then he saw her.

Helena had her hand outstretched toward him, a look of intense concentration on her face. “You’re just like the others,” she said, low but fierce enough to carry to where Castiel lay pinned against the truck like a bug on a board.

“Helena—what—”

“I should’ve known when I couldn’t read your mind. Only the unfaithful need to keep secrets.”

 _Psychic,_ Castiel thought, and wasn’t even glad that he’d figured it out before Sam and Dean had. Looked like Dean hadn’t been too far off with his guess of witch. He’d enjoy that.

“Helen—” the work choked off as Helena squeezed her fist and a crushing weight descended upon his windpipe.

“Don’t worry, Cas,” she said. “It’ll just look like you tripped coming out of your truck and broke your neck. No messy murder, no investigation. I wouldn’t do that to Sam. _I’m_ his friend.”

She twisted—

And nothing. Castiel felt the strain in his muscles but it was hard to snap an angel’s neck, and next to useless besides. She could keep him here, but she couldn’t kill him. Not without the blade tucked safely up his sleeve. Her fist slackened. “Why can’t I kill you?” she demanded.

The pressure around his throat released. He coughed. That was the downside of lungs: their unreliability. “What do you think I’ve done, Helena?”

“My sister saw you. Checking into a sleazy motel room. Having a midday booty call with your sidepiece.” The slang was… unusual, but Castiel thought he got the drift of it. He almost laughed. If she did succeed in killing him, this would be by far his most ridiculous death yet. Behind him, Castiel heard a growl. A familiar growl. “She was going to tell Sam, but chickened out. I thought that was unnecessary. I’d just go straight to the source.”

“Yeah, not going to happen,” Dean’s gruffest voice rang out. Castiel slumped against his psychic bonds. Helena couldn’t kill him. Probably. But being held like this wasn’t the most comfortable of ways to pass an afternoon. Dean swung the Impala into position besides Cas’s truck and got out, gun drawn, looking between Helena and where she was inefficiently attempting to choke Castiel to death. “Drop him.”

“Who the hell are you?” Helena snapped.

“I’m the guy who’s going to kill you if you don’t put him down _right now._ ”

Helena scoffed. “You have no idea who you’re talking to.”

“Oh, I do, actually,” Dean said. “Helena Morrison, right? You killed your husband.”

“He deserved it!” she shouted, and for the first time something wounded and vulnerable appeared on her face, an animal hurt that reminded Castiel of being human, of his soul chafing against every minor sting and pain it was exposed to. “He was cheating on me! I had to—to _punish_ him! And then I realized… I could. I’ve had these powers for years and never used them, like a good girl. But I could finally, _finally_ make everyone who’d ever wronged me pay.”

“Word of advice, plenty of people’s spouses cheat on them. Not everyone solves it with murder.”

“They should.” Dean shrugged, ready to concede the point. He followed her with the sight of his gun as she strode back and forth across the lawn.

“And the grocery kid?”

“He hit on me. I was _mourning._ I told him to stop, but then I thought: why bother? I can make sure he stops anyway.”

“And the housewife? What’d she ever do to you?”

“I told Phoebe Rees she’d regret what she said about my muffins!” she snarled, and with a wave of her hand sent Dean and his gun sprawling in opposite directions. 

– ✞ –

Two minutes before Cas arrived back home and was thrown aside by an invisible force, Marjorie rapped at Sam’s door, decisively, like if she just knocked firmly enough she could convince her watery legs and flip-flopping heart to steady. Sam opened it and smiled at her. She changed her mind again. Then, she steeled herself and said, “Sam, there’s something I need to tell you.”

“Oh. Okay.” Sam held the door open so she could duck inside. “Is there something we ought to be worried about?”

“No, I just—” she paused, catching sight of the two glasses still out on the countertop. “Helena just leave?”

“Yeah, I haven’t cleaned up yet. She’s becoming a good friend. She’s—holding up well, you know. Under the circumstances.”

“Really?” Marjorie said, jolted. “She told you? She’s been… ignoring her grief for weeks now. I thought… I thought she was never going to acknowledge what she was feeling.”

“Not ignoring it as much as trying to carry on with her life,” Sam said gently. “She told me about your mom’s philosophy.”

“What?”

“You know, how when your dad died, your mom made you guys keep going to school and getting on with life…” He trailed off, seeing something on Marjorie’s face that thoroughly shut him up.

“My dad died when Helena was six months old,” Marjorie said. “Nursery fire. Helena never even knew him.”

Sam blanched. Marjorie reached out a concerned arm for him. “Sam…?”

A loud popping noise emanated from the side of the house. Marjorie paused for a second, puzzled—Pleasant Gardens cars weren’t the type to backfire—but Sam was already running, drawing—oh goodness—a _gun_ from the waistband of his jeans. Marjorie stood there, paralyzed, but followed him out the side door, inexorably drawn by a fierce curiosity that overrode all sense of self-preservation. She screamed the moment she stepped outside, but it took a moment for her brain to register what she was seeing. Helena, punching a man nearly as large as Sam with such force in the balls he grunted and went down. Cas, sprawled on the ground near his truck, barely stirring. Sam, with his gun leveled at Helena. At her _sister._

She tried to pull his arm down, but he shook her off.

“Helena, stop!” he shouted. 

“Sam.” She was breathing hard. “I didn’t want you to have to see this. Oh well.”

“You need to stop,” repeated Sam. “You’ve been hurting people, Helena. You don’t even know why you have these powers, do you? I do. I can help you, Helena, but you have to stop hurting my friends.”

“You don’t even know—you don’t know what he’s done to you! How he’s _betrayed_ you.”

“No, _you_ don’t know anything about anything that’s going on,” Dean snapped from where he was laid out on the ground. “Cas, Sam, and I—we’re hunters.”

“We kill monsters,” Sam said quickly. “We came here to see what was causing the deaths. You’re not in control of yourself, Helena—”

“Oh, I think she’s got plenty of control,” Dean griped.

“—you don’t have to hurt anyone else.”

She was quiet for a long moment. “I see now. You’re wrong, Sam. I know exactly what I’m doing. And for tricking me into caring for you, you’re going to die _first_.”

“Helena,” Marjorie whispered, in that stage of trauma where she was paralyzed by shock and denial.

Helena didn’t seem to hear her. She flung out an arm and Sam’s hands flew open as he barreled backwards, into Marjorie. They both stumbled back into the house and crashed into the dividing wall between living room and kitchen. Sam groaned; Marjorie, crushed behind him, would’ve done the same, had she any breath. Then she felt Sam stiffen against her, and he pulled her down and out of the way—

—as the set of chef’s knives in the kitchen started to _hover_ and fling themselves at Sam, one after the other, until he was contorting his long limbs into fantastic shapes to avoid them. In the doorway, Helena smiled. Marjorie shuddered; it was like a smile she’d never seen before on her baby sister, dark and thirsty, wild and _powerful._ She was doing this, Marjorie realized slowly. She was the one throwing around Cas and the other man and sending knives flying through the air at Sam.

Marjorie screamed again, and this time she didn’t stop.

– ✞ –

Dean grunted as he climbed to his hands and knees, his nuts still throbbing from where that _freaking psychic_ had practically turned them inside out. He’d been knocked back by the force of the blow; Cas was stirring next to him, both of them forgotten as Helena followed Sam inside. Dean held out a hand and pulled Cas mostly upright. “You okay?” he asked.

“Dean,” Cas said gravely, “She’s a psychic.”

“Yeah, no shit. She’s one of Azazel’s special kids.” He watched Cas’s eyes grow round and added, “No idea why she didn’t die with the rest of them in Cold Oak, but we’ll fix that.”

Cas’s brows furrowed sadly. “Is there no way she can be reasoned with?”

“Dude, she’s already killed three people. And if Sam can’t talk her down, no one can.” He scrabbled in the dirt, looking for his pearl-handled Colt. “Gun, gun, where’s my gun…”

From inside, a woman screamed. Dean’s head jerked up. With difficulty, he climbed to his feet, Cas right behind him. “Once more into the breach,” he said, and then took the fight inside, where there may have been less room to maneuver, but at least there was central heating.

The scene they saw when they entered was not promising: Sam, all but pinned to the wall with a set of knives, some of which had sliced past his clothes and into the drywall; he was tugging now at a place where his undershirt was snagged by a cleaver as Helena advanced on him. Marjorie, wailing, pressed against the wall. Dean took aim and sputtered, “Oh, come on!” as Helena waved a hand at him without even looking and knocked his gun away again. Right. Psychic.

She held up a hand and Sam began to choke—

Dean rushed her and she stumbled. Sam gasped for air. Cas’s blade flashed; she brought a hand up to counter it but it sliced through her palm and she screamed—she pushed Dean back with tremendous force that almost impaled him on the corner of the kitchen counter and turned to face Cas, whose blade moved like water but kept running into an invisible shield that she had thrown up on instinct. Dean moved toward her again, and she flung out her other hand to keep him there.

“Don’t even think about it,” she snapped, face red and flushed. “I’m in control—”

She gasped. Her knees buckled. She raised a hand woozily to her head and half-turned to where Marjorie was standing behind her, one of Sam’s massive lore books clutched in a paper-white grasp. She took a stumbling step and fell forward.

Dean seized the moment. While she was dazed, he grabbed for the gun at his feet—Sam’s discarded gun—and planted a neat shot right between her eyes.

Marjorie stared at her sister’s body at her feet. Sam, finally having wriggled free of the knives, reached out a placating hand toward her. “Marjorie,” he said. “I know this is… a lot…”

“What was that?” she asked shakily.

“She was a psychic, and she was killing people,” Dean grunted.

“A psychic,” Marjorie said slowly.

“A human with innate supernatural powers, often involving telepathy or telekinesis,” Cas said. “Marjorie… I’m sorry.”

She looked straight through him. “Get out,” she said, all emotion drained from her voice. “And don’t come back.”

– ✞ –

Dean had said once that the drive back home always felt longer than the drive away from the bunker. Tonight, Sam was quiet. Dean was strangely cheerful, humming along to an upbeat song warbling from his cassette deck and shooting comments to the backseat where Castiel was sitting about where they should stop for dinner, and whether Castiel had tried this or that food yet. They ended up driving straight through dinner, Sam’s oppressive mood eventually weighing on Dean and forcing him to grimly focus on the drive ahead. Castiel didn’t mind.

He’d thought, in Lancaster, that being a good hunter, being good at _saving people_ , meant getting the monster before anyone else got killed. They’d done that here—Helena hadn’t hurt anyone else after they’d arrived, for all that she’d tried to stave Sam’s head in. But it still didn’t feel like a victory to Castiel. He thought of Marjorie screaming, the dead look in her eyes when she told them to get out. No, he thought, perhaps there was more to this saving people business than he’d previously suspected.

Lights passed them on the highway. It was a particularly long, quiet drive back to Lebanon.

– ✞ –

They got back in the early morning. Dean and Sam drifted off in opposite directions, their easy camaraderie soured by Sam’s inability to, as Dean put it, “just take a win.” Castiel sat down in the library and waited. He rather thought his presence might be… needed.

Sam found him first. He slunk into the library holding a beer and wearing the same clothes he had on the hunt. “Do you want to talk about it?” Castiel asked.

“Yes. No. I don’t know.”

“Then I’ll just… sit here until you think of something to say.”

Sam slumped down into the seat next to him. He was quiet for a long while. Castiel sat beside him, radiating, he hoped, companionship and comfort. Finally, Sam huffed out the ghost of a laugh and said, “You know, after all of it, there’s one thing I still don’t understand. Why couldn’t she read my mind?”

“Psychic shields,” Castiel said. “Yours are stronger than most. You and your brother’s. She probably got a feeling leaking out from you every now and then, but nothing concrete. Nothing that would have blown our cover.” He paused before he said, more tentatively, “Or perhaps the other children of Azazel are less vulnerable to each other’s powers.”

“Yeah.” Sam took a swig of his beer. “The other children.”

“Is that… what’s bothering you?”

“I guess so. I mean, why didn’t she lose her powers when he… when he died, like I did? Why wasn’t she called with me and the other… the others to Cold Oak? I thought the whole point was to figure out who would be the last one standing.”

“Azazel kept making special children until the day he died, Sam. As… as back-ups. Some were too young to have been called when you were. Helena was one of them.”

“And her powers?”

“He may have tapped into some natural psychic ability of hers,” Castiel said, unsure if this was helping but willing to try anyway. “Amplified it instead of creating it. You’re lucky she wasn’t called to battle at Cold Oak. She would’ve been a formidable opponent when Azazel was alive.”

Sam laughed bitterly. “They all were.” He tugged contemplatively on the label of his beer. More melancholy, he said, “I hadn’t thought about it in years, you know. Azazel. Everything that started this shit. And then first Ramiel, and now this… I don’t know, Cas. It’s all messed up.”

“Sam.” Castiel placed a steadying hand on Sam’s shoulder.

Sam smiled at that, just a little. “It’s weird talking to you about this, man. I keep thinking that you weren’t there. But you knew, didn’t you? You knew everything that was happening to put the wheels in motion.”

“I… yes. Heaven was aware of the plan to open the hellgate and set Lilith free. At the time, I didn’t question why we didn’t fight to stop it. I just assumed that until the seals were actively being broken, the situation had not become dire enough to require our assistance. Perhaps I should have.”

“That’s not on you, Cas,” Sam said wearily. “Not like—”

“Not like what?”

“Not like not looking for the other special children is on me,” Sam said. “I just assumed, you know? That we all got taken out at Cold Oak. I never remembered he was still climbing into nurseries, that there had to be more of us out there. Or maybe I just didn’t want to think about it. I got my revenge, right? What else was there left to do? And by then I had… bigger problems.”

“You can’t blame yourself for Helena, Sam,” Castiel said earnestly.

“No, I know. She made her own choices. It’s just… I thought she was a friend.”

“She wanted to kill me for supposedly cheating on you,” Castiel said. “That’s friendship. Of a sort.”

Sam smiled, but it faded quickly. “It was just… so easy to like her. She was just like me. And I wondered… I just wondered if the things I am—smart, rebellious, brave—I wonder if any of that is really me, not just programming or demon blood or—”

“Sam,” Castiel said firmly, “I can say, in the whole of creation, that I have never met two people more wholly themselves than you and your brother.”

Sam cracked a smile. This time it lingered. “Thanks, Cas.”

They sat in companionable silence for a few more moments. Finally, Sam stood and swigged his beer, finishing it off. “I should… get to bed. It’s late. Well, early. Thanks for listening, Cas.”

“Anytime,” Castiel said, but he watched him with a worried furrow in his brow, suspecting there was still something weighing on him that he hadn’t said yet.

Sam paused at the door of the library. “It kind of makes you think, doesn’t it? The perfect life. Some of us just aren’t cut out for it. From six months old, some of us just aren’t cut out for it.”

“Sam,” Castiel said helplessly, “that’s not true.”

“It’s not a bad thing,” Sam said, a terrible distance in his voice. “I know who I am. It just… drives you harder to protect that for other people, you know? To do what you can to keep that safe. Whatever you can.”

“Sam—”

“Goodnight, Cas,” Sam said, and disappeared into the hallway. Castiel paused, half out of his seat already, and sighed. He would talk to Sam about… all of that in the morning. He straightened, readjusted his coat, and looked around. One Winchester down.

He had a feeling the other one wouldn’t be coming to him tonight. Castiel sighed again, and set off making the rounds of the bunker looking for his other wayward human.

– ✞ –

Cas found him in the laundry, loading up the dryer with two days’ worth of clothes from not only Sam and Dean’s bags but Cas’s as well. Dean watched the trenchcoat spin merrily and sighed. Since they’d gotten back, he’d been pottering around, straightening up his room, unpacking their duffels, throwing what had gone bad in the fridge down the trash chute, chewing slowly on a slice of cold pizza in the kitchen, anything to avoid settling down in one place and facing the conversation that was surely coming. The conversation had found him now and was staring at him with intense eyes, a look that made Dean want to pull out his hair and kiss Cas firmly at the same time.

Dean shut the dryer door. “So,” he said at last, finally cornered. “Your first case in a while. How’d it go?”

Cas paused. “Unexpectedly,” he said. “Is it… always like that?”

Always like what, Dean didn’t ask. He knew. He knew that Cas had grown close to that woman—Marjorie—that he hadn’t wanted to harm her. Do you always end up hurting people you’d rather not, Cas was asking. Do you always end up sacrificing the friends you might’ve made for the greater good.

“Yeah,” he said. “It is.”

Cas hmmed. Dean noticed that he looked good like that, leaning against the doorframe—he’d grown so much more _human_ since his time as a, well, human—in Dean’s shirt and jeans, looking touchable. Like someone Dean could reach out and brush his fingers against, not like the angel on his shoulder that radiated peace and protection. “And you?” Cas asked.

“What about me?”

“You seem… lighter. Now that the case is over.”

“Yeah, I… just glad to be out of there, you know? Friggin’ St. Louis. I hate that place.”

“Sam liked it,” he said, and then, more quietly, “I liked it.”

Dean felt his throat close up. He thought again of Cas and a white-picket fence and 2.5 nephilim on his knee. “Well—good for you two. Maybe you can run off and buy a house for real,” he said, sarcasm heavy in his voice. “Of course, I’ll just be over here _doing our goddamn jobs,_ saving the world and stuff.” 

“Dean.” Cas stepped closer. “What is it about the idea of Sam and I enjoying ourselves on this case that upsets you?”

“It doesn’t _upset_ me—”

“This isn’t the first time you’ve snapped at me. And while I admit this is hardly an infrequent occurrence, you usually have a reason. Tell me.” Cas was looking at him with the widest, saddest puppy eyes Dean had ever seen in his life, and he’d grown up with Sam Winchester. “Is it… is it that you’d rather I wasn’t on this case with you? I know that I’m… inexperienced—”

“No. No, Cas, that’s not it,” Dean said hastily. I love it when you come with us, he didn’t say. That was too close to what he actually wanted to say for comfort. “It’s just—nothing. It’s nothing. Sorry I’ve been a jerk.”

“Then what is it?” Cas narrowed his eyes at him. “You’ve been strange since we first got this case. Is it because you weren’t able to do much of the legwork this time? Are you angry with Sam? With me?”

“No, Cas, it—”

But Dean recognized the look on Cas’s face, the focused and single-minded look of holy purpose, and knew that he would never be able to turn Cas aside. “It’s not about—really—I just—it’s nothing, just drop it.”

“I have learned,” Cas said, “that with you, it is rarely ever _nothing_ , no matter how much you protest it is. Dean. Please.”

Dean swallowed and before he could stop himself he’d blurted out, “I was—I was jealous, okay. Of you and Sam. Playing the happy couple. I wanted—I just wanted—”

Cas leaned forward, seemingly mesmerized by his stumbling. “Wanted what, Dean?”

God, he hated the way Cas said his name. Like it was the most important word in the world, like a treasured candy that he needed to savor, like a prayer. Hated and loved it.

“—Nothing. It’s nothing.”

“Dean,” Cas said, and suddenly there was true, fierce anger in his voice, “you—you—”

“What?” Dean asked, terrified that Cas was going to rake him over the coals for not having gotten over this silly crush years ago, like he did in his worst nightmares of how this would go.

“I can feel your longing, did you know that?” Dean’s heart fell out of his chest and landed somewhere in the vicinity of his knees. “I can feel every time you want, this constant ache to be by your side always. You don’t understand—how overwhelming it is, the pull you exert on me, how much your wanting makes me want—and I have gone as far as I could go—I _told_ you, Dean, I told you in that barn, and you ignored me—and I can’t. I can’t take this step, too. It needs to be you,” Cas’s eyes burned with light and agony. Dean’s heart trembled to make him look like that, with such intensity but also such pain. He listened numbly, a dawning agony in his chest. “But you never will, will you? You’ll suspend us forever in this desire and never make us whole. Merciless. Dean, I can’t. It has to be you. I can’t.”

“Cas,” Dean breathed out.

 _I told you._ Dying in agony and trying to protect him still. He’d said, “I love you,” and looked straight at Dean, and Dean had brushed it off as just another thing you said to family when your clock was ticking down, but Cas had meant it the other way. Meant it the way Dean’s heart had screamed for him to mean it all along.

And he was right.

Dean had repressed for so long, so sure that speaking it aloud would ruin it or ruin him, like the way he ruined everyone who got too close except Sam, that he’d never seriously considered saying it. Even after Cas had said it first. He’d been too scared, too hopelessly, helplessly terrified of what might not happen, or worse, what might. But Dean knew Cas. Knew the way he thought, even knew, perhaps, that he never would’ve taken that final step—that he would’ve gone all the way up to the edge but waited for Dean to take that final leap—because of all that had gone on between them, all of the betrayals, Dean always getting left behind, he wouldn’t press for more. He’d hang there— _suspended_ —watching something he wanted and never reaching for it because it wasn’t his place. It had to be Dean’s choice. And he was chickenshit enough that he’d just been resigning himself to never asking, never thinking what it would to do Cas. It felt cruel now.

And now that he was so close to it, the beauty of what might be unfurled before him: reaching out and grazing his fingers over Cas’s stubbled cheek, his rumpled and surprised smile in the morning and pillow creases on his forehead, Cas beside him, Cas behind him, always, forever. He found himself choked by the thought of it, the words he needed to reach out for it lodged in his throat. He found himself wavering, helpless, scared.

But Cas. Cas loved him.

Cas was reaching. And he had reached far enough, given up enough, he had sacrificed everything for Dean and sworn to protect him and told him _he loved him_ and Dean had never been able to return the favor, never known how to tell Cas _me too_ , but now he could. It was unfair to ask Cas to reach any further when he’d already stretched so far. Dean could close the gap between them. He could be that strong.

Resolve deepened in him. He always felt braver when Cas was by his side.

“I love you,” Dean said.

It wasn’t like how he’d imagined it. The heavens didn’t open and smack him down for daring to love someone so above him, so incredibly out of his league. Cas didn’t recoil, disgusted at the thought of his messy human love from his messy human self. The world didn’t stop spinning. The laundry turned over in the machine, and Cas was close enough to him to touch, and he smiled, tenderly, his heart and soul and everything that made him _Cas_ in his eyes. “I know,” Cas said.

Dean sputtered. “Did you just Han Solo me?”

“Dean, I’ve been waiting for you to say that to me for years, I would not have ruined it with a pop culture reference.”

Dean looked at Cas wryly. “Years, huh?”

“Yes,” Cas said. He stepped closer, until he was in Dean’s personal space and the heat between them sparked to life. “The question is: what are you going to do about it?”

Dean eyed him hungrily. “Oh, I _love_ that question.”

– ✞ –

They cleaved together like two halves of a whole.

They banged into Dean’s door on the way in, at least trying to be considerate of Sam down the hall—and God, Sam would be smug for ages—but once he wrestled Cas onto the bed it got somehow even better. Dean’s hands were unsteady on the first trembling stroke of Cas’s cock—it had been years since he’d done this with another guy—more years since Cas had become the only guy he wanted to do anything with. He went slow, mindful that Cas probably had never been with a man at all before, but Cas was intent, intense. He sat on Dean’s lap and devoured him with a hunger that Dean had never suspected from him. He thought that Cas had maybe been waiting too long. Maybe they both had.

It was nothing terribly special—a messy handjob that turned into the two of them rutting against each other, clothes mostly still on, desperate to touch, to satisfy the skin hunger that had tormented them both so long. But Dean swore he blacked out when he came, lights flashing behind his eyes, reminding him of his angel’s eyes watching him come down (like they were blazing a hole into his soul, some terrible, wonderful part of his mind whispered). Dean almost came again when Cas lost it and finished all over his t-shirt— _Dean’s_ t-shirt—which was about the hottest thing he’d ever seen, his angel finally losing control.

“Was it worth the wait?” Cas asked, lying in bed afterward.

“No,” Dean said. “Nothing was worth that long a wait. We should’ve been doing this a damn sight sooner.”

Cas laughed. “And whose fault is that?”

“Yeah, yeah, the next angel I want to seduce I’ll put aside my pride and make the first move.”

Cas scowled. “Not on your life.”

“Jealous?” Dean teased. It strangely brightened him, to know that he wasn’t alone in the pit of dark, selfish feelings.

“Hush. I’m trying to sleep.”

Dean played with Cas’s hair. “You’ll be off in the morning, won’t you?” he said, feeling the same crushing disappointment that always came when Cas took off to do—whatever holy mission he’d gotten himself set on, but more acutely now, picturing the long days and nights ahead of him when he’d reach for Cas and find empty air.

Cas turned to him. His breath tickled his nose, the strands of Dean’s hair falling over his face. “Kelly Kline must still be found,” he rumbled. Dean listened to each beat of his heart. He thought that maybe Cas was making it beat just for him, just so that he would feel more comfortable, and felt immeasurable gratitude for him. “And you and Sam are needed here. Working cases. Saving people. But… I was thinking that perhaps, for a while, I could stay.”

He pictured it: Cas out on the road, but calling home every now and then. Returning to the bunker a little more often, spending those precious few nights in Dean’s room with him. Cas there in the morning, squinting at Dean’s fry-up of eggs and bacon. Cas sipping dutifully at his coffee mug. He buried his face in Cas’s neck. “Yeah,” he said roughly. “I’d really like that.”

Cas here, in his arms, _in his arms_ at last. Mom—well, not here, but somewhere out there, alive. Sam down the hall, not dead or dying or possessed or banging a demon or any of the awful things he’d been over the years. For the first time in a long, long time, Dean thought about peace.

Beside him, Castiel turned in a rustle of sheets to stick his cold nose and ticklish eyelashes behind Dean’s ear. “Sleep,” he said. “I can, as they say, hear you thinking. It’s very annoying.”

Dean closed his eyes obligingly. His last thought before he drifted off was that next time, and he’d fight Sam if it came down to it, _he_ would be the one pretending to be fake-married to Cas. St. Louis or no.

– ✞ – ✞ – ✞ –

**Author's Note:**

> Gee, I wonder what Sam will do in his newfound urge to protect the Dream at all costs.
> 
> Does this make 13.01 any worse? Not really.
> 
> Meta, sarcasm, and author interaction at [tumblr](http://midrashic.tumblr.com/). If you like my work and want to support me, buy me a coffee. Comments are nice, but concrit is yummier. 😋


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